Tuesday, 27 November 2018

Yes, I Play Paladins. You Can Watch (if you wanna)

I’ll be your “Pal” and play “Paladins” get it its a pun because the two words start with the same syllable I’m funny…

For a long time now I’ve been hearing about team-shooter and battle-royale style video games. You know, the the team-shooter games like “Overwatch” where 2 teams of five real people play (via the internet) against each other. And the battle-royale style video games like “Fortnite” where 50 real people (on the internet) are dumped into some sort of massive arena and fight until there can be only one.

Well, this past summer both “Fortnite” and “Paladins” (a vaguely-fantasy-themed team-shooter video game) were released for free on the Nintendo Switch. So I got ’em both!

I played “Fortnite.”

I don’t get it.

I understand that this is one of the most popular video games in the world right now. I don’t get it. I spent all my matches running around for upwards of 10-15 minutes without seeing any other people, only to get killed with some shots to the back of the head by an opponent I never even saw. Fun?

So I switched to “Paladins.”

I get it, guys. I get it.

There’s something very compelling about the immediacy of these team-shooter games, where everyone you see is played by a real person (on the internet) (except if they disconnect, in which case a rather stupid bot will take over their character). The variety of characters in “Paladins” that you can choose from, the gobs and gobs of different skill loadouts you can build for each character… I get it. I really, really love playing “Paladins.” I even recorded myself playing once, and you can watch it here if for some reason you really want to (apologies for the glitchy selfie camera; I’ll have to figure out what caused that before I record any more).

Yeah, that was that. I kept forgetting to narrate what I was doing because I usually only get to play late at night after the rest of my household has gone to sleep, and I tend to be pretty quiet during those occasions.

Do any of you play “Paladins?” My username is Angry Beef (of course). Look me up! Also, can anyone explain the appeal of “Fortnite” to me? Because so far it≠fun.